June 13, 2015

Into, out of, and across the Eurasian steppe

A new paper in Nature adds to the earlier study in the same journal by presenting data from 101 ancient Eurasians. The year is not yet halfway over, but it seems that the ancient DNA field is moving towards a new norm of studying dozens of individuals at a time and comprehensively tackling the "big problems" that have vexed archaeologists, linguists, and historians for decades if not centuries.

The first conclusion of the new study is the detection of the migration from the steppe to Europe that was the title piece of the earlier study. The authors do not present quantitative estimates of the amount of demographic replacement effected by the Yamnaya-to-Corded Ware migration, so it will be interesting to see if there are any minor significant differences in these. But, the two papers have different Yamnaya and Corded Ware samples, and yet arrive at qualitatively similar conclusions, so at least this part of the story should be considered firmly "settled".

The second conclusion is the migration from the European steppe to the Afanasievo culture of the Altai. This has been long-hypothesized based on the physical type of the Afanasievo people and their possession of a similar pastoralist/wheeled vehicle toolkit that would have allowed them to cover the huge difference between Europe and the Altai. This confirms movement #2 of the Anthony/Ringe model, although I doubt that this migration had anything to do with Tocharians as detailed below. But, it did happen.

The third conclusion is that the later steppe cultures of the Sintashta and Andronovo (putative Indo-Iranians according to some), were not a continuation of the Yamnaya-Afanasievo people, but had extra Neolithic farmer ancestry. So, it seems that Neolithic farmers entered the steppe, and the development of steppe cultures did not happen in isolation. Whether this involved migration of Corded Ware people (as the authors prefer), who were already a mixture of Yamnaya and Neolithic farmers, or some other mixture of Neolithic farmers with steppe populations (e.g., Tripolye plus Yamnaya) remains to be seen.

The fourth conclusion of the paper is that these steppe cultures were also later replaced by people of at least partial East Asian or "Native American"-like ancestry. So, it seems that movements into the steppe happened both on the western end (as the incursion of Neolithic farmer ancestry into the Sintashta proves), but also on the eastern end, with the Europeoid populations of western origin receiving admixture from the eastern periphery of the Eurasian steppe.

As for the Yamnaya, the authors do not find a very strong signal of admixture (as did the earlier study), which they attribute quite plausibly to the lack of eastern hunter-gatherers in their dataset. On the other hand, they claim that the "Caucasus" genetic component in the steppe populations was of steppe ancestry rather than Near Eastern/Caucasian origin as was claimed in the earlier paper. This is based on the statistic D(Yoruba, Armenia BA; Yamnaya, Corded Ware) that is not significantly different from zero. However, Corded Ware is a mixture of Yamnaya and European Neolithic, so the sign of this statistic is determined by the sign of the statistic D(Yoruba, Armenia BA; Yamnaya, European Neolithic). If Yamnaya was simply a steppe population, descendants of local people without ancestry from the Middle East/Caucasus, then this statistic would be positive because of the shared Middle Eastern ancestry of Armenia BA and European Neolithic. Whereas, if Yamnaya is a mixture of a steppe population and a Middle Eastern/Caucasian one, then the statistic would be positive/negative for the respective parts, which would be consistent with an average not different from zero. I am sure that when the new data is re-analyzed together with the eastern hunter-gatherers it will be clear that the Yamnaya are not a pure steppe population.

Nonetheless, I am quite glad to read a sentence such as this:

Populations in northern and central Europe were composed of a mixture of the earlier hunter-gatherer and Neolithic farmer10 groups, but received ‘Caucasian’ genetic input at the onset of the Bronze Age (Fig. 2).

It seems that my prediction the the West_Asian component would appear in post-5ka Europeans and was related to Indo-Europeans has been adequately confirmed by the last two papers.

Speaking of the Caucasus/Middle East, it seems clear as a first approximation that the Bronze Age Armenians are quite similar to modern Armenians. Whether the genetic continuity of Armenians extends beyond the Bronze Age, or Armenians were formed by mixture in the Bronze Age remains to be seen. The question of Armenian linguistic origins is of course separate as it is commonly understood that the Armenian language is unrelated to Anatolian languages and may have arrived in Armenia from the Balkans at around the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition.

The authors also study some phenotypic traits such as lactase peristence (Yamnaya had some, but overall prevalence was much lower than modern Europeans, hence lots of selection to the present), and skin eye pigmentation. Like Wilde et al., and Mathieson et al., the steppe populations seem to have had brown eyes. Given that so did Neolithic Europeans, and (presumably) ancient Middle Easterners/Caucasians, I think it's a good bet that Proto-Indo-Europeans (whatever solution to the PIE urheimat one accepts) were a brown-eyed people, or in the very least far from the blue-eyed "Aryans" of racial mythology. Even the Bronze Age and Iron Age Asians seem to have been a predominantly brown-eyed people, although the derived HERC2 allele seems to be at a higher frequency in them than in the steppe Europeans.

The story of the Y-chromosomes seems very interesting, although these are not resolved to fine detail. The most interesting aspect of this part of the work is the appearance of haplogroup J in Iron Age samples from Russia, Armenia, and the Altai. This may tie in to the question of the Tocharian origins, which I have claimed were associated with R1b, rather than R1a (as the Indo-Iranians were). The modern Uygurs (who are partially of Tocharian origin) have both J2 and R1b, so were the recipients of West Eurasian elements other than the R1a that so seem to have dominated the eastern steppe, including the Afanasievo. I continue to think there's no evidence that the Afanasievo is Proto-Tocharian, as it's in the wrong place and 3,000 years before the attestation of Tocharian.

Overall this is an amazing study which adds a lot to what we know about Bronze Age Eurasia. Hopefully there is more to come in the second half of 2015, but for the time being there is plenty to chew on.

The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000–1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age. We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.

//Overall this is an amazing study which adds a lot to what we know about Bronze Age Eurasia. Hopefully there is more to come in the second half of 2015, but for the time being there is plenty to chew on.//Yes There Is:).// I think it's a good bet that Proto-Indo-Europeans (whatever solution to the PIE urheimat one accepts) were a brown-eyed people, or in the very least far from the blue-eyed "Aryans" of racial mythology. Even the Bronze Age and Iron Age Asians seem to have been a predominantly brown-eyed people, although the derived HERC2 allele seems to be at a higher frequency in them than in the steppe Europeans.//Very Interesting.//R1a that so seem to have dominated the eastern steppe, including the Afanasievo. I continue to think there's no evidence that the Afanasievo is Proto-Tocharian, as it's in the wrong place and 3,000 years before the attestation of Tocharian.//No Yamnaya Sample has yielded any R1a so far its pretty intriguing, i'm starting to Suspect R1a Either has its Origin in NC Europe or C Asia.I agree we don't have anything so far that we can conclude on Tokharians.//It seems that my prediction the the West_Asian component would appear in post-5ka Europeans and was related to Indo-Europeans has been adequately confirmed by the last two papers.//Quite So:) but we need more aDNA from Southern Regions of Asia for sure...

"So, it seems that Neolithic farmers entered the steppe, and the development of steppe cultures did not happen in isolation. Whether this involved migration of Corded Ware people (as the authors prefer), who were already a mixture of Yamnaya and Neolithic farmers, or some other mixture of Neolithic farmers with steppe populations (e.g., Tripolye plus Yamnaya) remains to be seen."

Good - as many here know, I have suggested this for years, based on archaeology, climate, and common sense.

We should also remember that the path of the LBK-derived Neolithic went east in nowadays Poland and the western Ukraine, and then turned south in the (nowadays Ukrainian) river valleys. As such, one should expect that since the early Neolithic, the NW and W part of the Pontic region harbored eastern hunter-gatherer genetic contribution on top of the mixed Central European farmer DNA from the get-go.

Well this is annoying. J2a prowling "near" the Tocharians. And pretty much on time. That would point to our involvement with the two oldest Indo-European languages on record. But that "near" is only relative in this huge space - about a thousand miles away.

OTOH that Armenian-like connection has disappeared. And we're not showing up in the Bronze Age at all so far in Eurasia.

This is just painful. Why are we speaking an IE language in Anatolia? Why isn't any kind of foreign influence showing up in the Anatolian record? How could we have POSSIBLY influenced a population as massive as the Corded Ware people? ARE we among the Tocharians? Or did the Uygurs get their J2a from somewhere else?

@Fanty,"So, we are back to WHG as main source for european blue eyeness?"@Dienkes," Like Wilde et al., and Mathieson et al., the steppe populations seem to have had brown eyes. Given that so did Neolithic Europeans, and (presumably) ancient Middle Easterners/Caucasians, I think it's a good bet that Proto-Indo-Europeans (whatever solution to the PIE urheimat one accepts) were a brown-eyed people, or in the very least far from the blue-eyed "Aryans" of racial mythology."

I agree WHG/EEF/Pre-IE appears to be the source of modern blue eyes and Steppe people were vast majority brown eyed. For some reason it appears brown eyes were selected for in Neolithic Spain and blue eyes were selected for in Neolithic Central-North Europe(~50% had blue). This split can ultimately explain eye color differences between Modern Euros.

The Neolithic ancestors of Central-North Euros were much more WHG-admixed than the genomes we currently have. So they were probably over 50% blue eyed. Late Neolithic/Bronze age Central-North Euros were mostly brown eyed(because of Steppe ancestry), and later I think blue eyes were selected for.

Sintashta/Andronovo have a lot of blue eyes because they were immigrants from Europe, not the Steppe, with alot of WHG. In the last few days people have tested Sintashta/Andronovo DNA files, and they've come out very much like modern Balts.

.. or SHG who were all blue-eyed. SHG also have the highest frequencies of the "secondary" light-skin allele in SLC45A2 of all ancient samples tested so far, so perhaps they are a likely source for this as well.

Dienekes : "that the Afanasievo is Proto-Tocharian, as it's in the wrong place and 3,000 years before the attestation of Tocharian"

a/ The two Tocharian languages were two DIFFERENT _languages_ (not slightly different dialects), implying a LONG time diverging from their common source.

b/ Tocharian is quite old in the IE languages tree, just after the Anatolian group. so it separated early enough compared to the other IE languages and it has plenty of vocabulary matches with language groups such as Baltic, Latin , Germanic etc... so it seems to be able to fit with the Afanasievo migration.

Besides where are the influence from major languages and cultures from south Asia or the middle east? where are the loanwords? it looks like it developped in isolation from other influences (except maybe some uralic and Turkic/Tubgusic-like loanwords (according to some). It fits too.

"The fourth conclusion of the paper is that these steppe cultures were also later replaced by people of at least partial East Asian or "Native American"-like ancestry. So, it seems that movements into the steppe happened both on the western end (as the incursion of Neolithic farmer ancestry into the Sintashta proves), but also on the eastern end, with the Europeoid populations of western origin receiving admixture from the eastern periphery of the Eurasian steppe."

Previous papers by Reich et al have pointed out that a "Native American-like" component also exists in Europe. A key issue is where and when the West Eurasians began to speak Indo-European or its predecessor and if it originated in these populations, or whether it was a later adoption.

YHG Q is definitely part of the mix in Europe, even if only as a trace element. Looking at the distribution of YHG Q in Europe shows some interesting patterns. See:

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_Q_Y-DNA.shtml

Here's a partial listing of YHG Q subclades in Western Eurasia:

Q1a2a1 (L54) Q1a2a1a (CTS11969) Q1a2a1a1 (M3): the main subclade of Native Americans Q1a2a1a2 (L804): found in Germany, Scandinavia and Britain (possibly Hunnic) Q1a2a1a2a (L807): observed in Britain Q1a2a1b (Z780): found among Native Americans, notably in Mexico Q1a2a1c (L330): the main subclade of the Mongols, also found among the Kazakhs and Uzbeks, as well as in Ukraine, Turkey and Greece (probably Mongolian and Turkic)

The South Asian-Central Asian-Caucasus component which appears at K = 8 is strong in BA Armenians and in Yamnaya and it's present in all populations influenced by these. It's absent in early in middle Neolithic European farmers. So it might be a marker of IE expansions. Notably this component is absent in BA Hungary and Montenegro. At K = 8 Remedello is like Gok2, and BA Hungary and BA Montenegro likewise, they only have a few individuals with increased HG ancestry.

However, at K = 15, the South Asian-Central Asian-Caucasus component splits into a South Asian and a Caucasus component. Now the Caucasus component is also present in BA Hungary and Montenegro. The Caucasus component was already present in the early European farmers, but it had disappeared in some middle Neolithic farmers, probably because of slight extra WHG admixture. At present, neither Sardinians nor Basques have any trace of the Caucasus component. Yet in BA Hungary and Montenegro it had increased again, to a higher level than in the early farmers. BA Montenegro has a lot of it, among the modern Greeks only one has more than them. So, whereas the combined K = 8 South Asian-Central Asian-Caucasus component looked like associated with R1a/R1b people, this K = 15 Caucasus component behaves more like associated with J2 expansions.

But then, at K = 19, the Kalash component appears, and now those populations who had the combined K = 8 South Asian-Central Asian-Caucasus component get some Kalash admixture. While those who only had the K = 15 Caucasus component, don't get Kalash, they keep their Caucasus component. Only three indiviuals among BA Hungary have some Kalash, presumably from the Yamnaya there. BA Montenegro doesn't have it. Modern Greeks have only minute traces. And so do modern Armenians. But interestingly, BA Armenians had a stronger Kalash signal! It has already disappeared in IA Armenians. Yamnaya has even more than the BA Armenians.

The Remedello culture of Northern Italy is acknowledged to be the first example of the Indo-European influx into that area. The Remedello cultural complex shows the same characteristics that mark Indo-Europeanization around the continent (wheels, pastoralism, changes in religion, a more hierarchical society, etc.) This is settled, and I have read dozens of posters here make statements to that effect in the past.

Yet the Remedello samples are unequivocally I2, and I believe 2/3 of them are I-M26.

People often dismiss I-M26 as an exclusively Sardinian marker, and because it is so rare, there isn't much popular or commercial interest in it. However, this little studied marker holds one of the keys to understanding the process of Indo-Europeanization.

Italy has a well-preserved prehistory and well-documented history. We have a good sense of when the first Indo-Europeans came into the region.

So, how do folks explain the Remedello samples being M26, and autosomally, quite different from the eastern samples, given the well-established thought that Remedello culture was Indo-European?

Was this an example of cultural or demic diffusion? If so, what does that say about the theory of Indo-European spread? Could it have been all three types of spread?

I have heard others state that if you remove Sardinia as a clear statistical outlier, that M26, present at 3% in the UK and 7-8% in Iberia, mirrors R1b at a low ratio. Thus another theory is that it was a component or even a caste of sorts amidst the IE migrations.

How Remedello was M26 has further implications on the Corded Ware people to the north. Some suspect they will turn up substantially R1b and thus the demic diffusion model will be alive and well.

"It seems that my prediction the the West_Asian component would appear in post-5ka Europeans and was related to Indo-Europeans has been adequately confirmed by the last two papers."

Give it up. You lost. Your "West_Asian component" is still not real or informative about the actual population movements involved, and the ancient DNA evidence in no way supports the version of history you imagined.

You: "the Indo-European speaking nucleus, originally one among many linguistic groups of the prehistoric Near East"

Allentoft et al.: Using D-statistics,we find that Corded Ware and Yamnaya individuals form a clade tothe exclusion of Bronze Age Armenians (Extended Data Table 1)showing that the genetic ‘Caucasus component’ present in BronzeAge Europe has a steppe origin rather than a southern Caucasusorigin.

@Gary,"Previous papers by Reich et al have pointed out that a "Native American-like" component also exists in Europe. "

This Native American-like component is much higher in the Caucasus and South Asia, than in Europe. There is no actual Native American ancestry in West Eurasia. There was a population that lived in Eurasia that contributed to Native Americans and many Eurasians.

Y DNA Q has nothing to do with this ancestry. Instead Y DNA R, its brother, probably does. In fact Mesolithic Russians were mostly R1(a/b) and had more of this type of ancestry than anyone around today, and then this type of ancestry was introduced into Europe by people from Russia/Ukraine who were mostly R1(a/b).

"I have heard others state that if you remove Sardinia as a clear statistical outlier, that M26, present at 3% in the UK and 7-8% in Iberia, mirrors R1b at a low ratio. Thus another theory is that it was a component or even a caste of sorts amidst the IE migrations."

Only if R1b is (or mostly is) an IE marker, but there is nothing in the recent new studies that would make that theory any stronger. The Yamnaya R1b is not directly ancestral to current Western R1b and the identified direct proxy of the population change (at least in the North) was Corded Ware witch is still R1a, also now we have old R1b from near the putative Iberian source area of Bell Beaker.

I think that they may have misinterpreted their genetics results. There is evidence of fairly close DNA matches between modern Native Americans and Europeans that implies a comparatively recent common ancestry. See:

The origin of Latin 'gladius', a type of sword is interesting: "The close connection with Celtic words for 'sword', together with the imperfect match of initial consonants, and the semantic field of weaponry, suggests that Latin borrowed a form *gladio- or *kladio- (a hypothetical variant of attested British Celtic *kladimo- 'sword') from [Proto-Celtic] or from a third language. [de Vaan]" There is no stated Proto Indo-European etymology for this form, or a Nostratic one, for that matter. A possible etymology, however, is suggested by the close resemblance of the *Proto Celtic forms to two modern Cherokee verb phrases: gatiha 'he's stabbing him, it', and galadia 'he's putting a long object in a container'. 'A long slender thing that stabs and is put away in a container (scabbard, sheath)' is a good description of a sword.

An intriguing theory maintains that North Americans ("The Red Paint People") may have crossed the North Atlantic 7000 years BP and influenced European cultures. The prevalence of ochre burials presents an interesting parallel to the Yamna culture. See:

I personally favor an overland migration model involving a recrossing of the Bering Straits by speakers of Archaic Iroquoian and Siouan languages - probably during the 8.2 Kiloyear Event. The domestic dog used as a pack animal, as has been documented from pre-equestrian cultures of the North American Great Plains, would have facilitated rapid diffusion across the Eurasian Steppes, which would also account for the close resemblance for forms for 'dog' across IE and Siouan-Iroquoian-Caddoan cultures. The prevalence of YHG R1a and R1b among IE speakers may be a red herring as that these populations could simply represent early "converts" to the new language. Edward Vajda has suggested that languages related to modern Native American families were once widely spoken across Siberia, and my hypothesis is that these languages formed the basis of the precursor of Proto Indo-European. The following is a link to a talk by Vajda on the subject:

I think you're wrong. You haven't considered the fact that remedello, and copper age italy in general, didn't speak indo european. Perhaps your error lies in your reliance on 195os archaeological theorems which view Remedelo as a "Kurganized culture". It's not.

Many so called "Kurganized" cultures (eg Baden-Cotofeni) were not Kurgan derived, but rather represent an evolution toward a more dispersed, stock -raising mode of living from late neolithic precedents. We know this already from the aDNA from Hugary, which only has modest "Yamnaya" input.

In any case, M26 is a mesolithic-cum-neolithic maker, and has nothing to do with PiE.

The problem is just that this European Farmer ancestry turns up in Bronze Age cultures like Sintashta and Andronovo, who are Bronze Age also according to central European parlance, but not in Yamnaya. At least not in the Yamnaya sampled so far, which was from Samara on the Volga (Haak et al.) and from southern Russia (this paper). And that's where the DNA-evidence contradicts your theory.

Please note that among the Yamnaya R1b in Haak et al. There was one R1b1a-P297 and one R1b1a2a-L23. Both can be considered ancestral to West European R1b. Whereas the Iberian Farmer was R1b1. That's also ancestral, but obviously much more upstream than the Yamnaya R1b1a2a.

Furthermore you are wrong about the Corded Ware being R1a only. RISE1, a Corded Ware male from central Poland, is R1b. And he's dated to 2578 BC at the latest. This predates the arrival of Bell Beakers in central Europe.

Furthermore, RISE98 from Sweden is also R1b, and although labeled as „baSca“ in Supplementary Table 9, that is Bronze Age Scandinavia, he belongs to a late Chalcolithic Battle Axe context, Battle Axe culture being the local version of the Corded Ware. He predates the arrival of real tin bronze and the beginning of the Bronze Age proper by centuries. And neither was Sweden part of the Bell Beaker complex. So his R1b is also in all likelihood from the Corded Ware. And according to Genetiker it's R1b-U106!!

Interesting to see how far West their original terrritory was. The expansion of the reindeer farming culture might be responsible for the movement of the native American into the late bronze age Rurope, either by integration or Western displacement. Timing is similar.

Sad to see how little of the original Ket phenotype is gone from even very elderly Ket. This will make me view Ket genetic samples cautiously.

It seemed to me that the language structure seemed to IMO slightly imply America->Asia but the expert speaker assumed Asia-> America in the Q and A at the end.

@Gary Moore: There is evidence of fairly close DNA matches between modern Native Americans and Europeans that implies a comparatively recent common ancestry. See...

I think you misunderstood that PDF, there's zero indication of "recent" common ancestry there, just a reorganisation of the tree due to new discoveries. The SNP that say "common to both European and Native American groups" (L213) is in Qa1a3, now called Qa1a2 or Q-L53/S326 according to http://cdn.eupedia.com/images/content/Haplogroup-Q.gif, but you are making a fundamental mistake by implying that all Q is Native American. If you read below the image (on this page: http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_Q_Y-DNA.shtml) you can see that the "Q" found in America are specific subclades of Q that aren't found anywhere else, and are all descendant from the Anzick boy's "Q". The most ancestral subclades (and hence likely origins) of Q are found in Siberia and Central Asia, and in terms of your broader theory of IE history, the link says that Q is "almost certainly not one of the original lineages of Proto-Indo-European speakers of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe since it is almost completely absent from Balto-Slavic and Germanic countries".

A possible etymology, however, is suggested by the close resemblance of the *Proto Celtic forms to two modern Cherokee verb phrases: gatiha 'he's stabbing him, it', and galadia 'he's putting a long object in a container'. 'A long slender thing that stabs and is put away in a container (scabbard, sheath)' is a good description of a sword.

This kind of opportunistic speculation from a single data point is what gives linguistics a bad name. Combined with your misunderstandings of haplogroup Q above, I'm highly skeptical your theory will hold any water.

An intriguing theory maintains that North Americans ("The Red Paint People") may have crossed the North Atlantic 7000 years BP and influenced European cultures. The prevalence of ochre burials presents an interesting parallel to the Yamna culture.

Intriguing maybe, but many other cultures since the Upper Paleolithic have also practiced ochre burials including Africans, Australians and even Neanderthals. In Europe, the Arene Candide and Paviland Cave sites show ochre burials were happening long before the Yamnaya. Using ochre to associate Yamanya with Native Americans is just another opportunistic pseudo-correlation.

To Mike Thomas: How do you know what language the Remedello people spoke? Do you have a time machine?

Certainly you won't reply, "They bore Y-Chromosome Hg I, so they couldn't have been Indo-European-speaking, since Indo-Europeans were all R1, and that therefore proves IEs were R1." That circular/invalid/wacky logic pervades a lot of the Internet.

And this is not to say that I agree with Gary Moore. (Although I do love his last name).

I think RISE479 from the Vatya culture is a better proxy for the Hungarian Yamnaya than BR1. See:

RISE479, GEDmatch ID F999944, Vatya culture, early Bronze Age Hungary

Eurogenes K15:19 North_Sea10 East_Euro32 Baltic26 Atlantic13 West_Med

Dodecad K12b:60 North_European40 Atlantic_Med

BR1, Mako culture, early Bronze Age Hungary

K15:24 North_Sea3 East_Euro25 Baltic28 Atlantic20 West_Med

K12b:55 North_European44 Atlantic_Med1.5 Caucasus

RISE479 (Vatya) has more East_Euro, more Baltic, less Atlantic and less West_Med. In K12b also more North_European, less Atlantic_Med, and no Caucasus. So it's a clear-cut case. Both have a rather strong Baltic component, suggestive of quite a strong WHG element.

Therefore I would conclude that there really was some notable genetic influence from post-Yamnaya Hungary upon the Bell Beakers, and that this influence was stronger in the Czech Bell Beakers than in those from central Germany. I would presume that it was also stronger in Bell Beakers from Southern Germany. So the archeologists who saw an influence of Vucedol or Vucedol-Yamnaya upon the eastern Bell Beakers were right!

However, it has to be made clear that this Vatya-like influence is quite unlike the Samara Yamnaya and the Corded Ware. It is intermediate on a WHG-EHG scale and completely lacks the West_Asian element, also the Teal/Gedrosia element. Even if someone might object that we have no sample from the Hungarian Yamnaya, this is irrelevant, because what influenced the Czech Bell Beakers was really Vatya-like. And anyway, Vatya is so distinct from the EN/MN people and obviously EHG admixed that it has to be from the local Yamnaya.

But now there is an interesting twist: We've got three y-chromosomes from Vatya, and all three were I2! At this point I'm convinced that this I2 arrived with the local Yamnaya and isn't a founder effect from admixed local farmers. After all, there was also I2 in one of the South Russian Yamnaya males, so it wasn't foreign to them. And we know that I2 was common in European HGs, also in ANE-admixed ones, see the SHG! So what speaks against the still unsampled western steppe HGs having lots of I2? Nothing!

And it would make sense that R1b was associated with stronger EHG, stronger West_Asian, stronger Teal/Gedrosia than the stuff we've seen in Vatya. Vatya simply doesn't look like an R1b-admixed population, more like an I2-dominated one.

That's not yet all. Consider Unetice! We've got three Unetice y-chromosomes, and all three were I2! But where did Unetice originate? On the northern fringe of the Carpathian Basin, in Southeastern Moravia! So, is it a coincidence that they were dominated by I2? Of course not! At this point I think it's obvious that I2 was part of the steppe culture and that it participated in the early IE dispersals. This I2 in Vatya and in Unetice is IE, and most probably Italo-Celtic. Unetice probably influenced Germanic. And the large number of I2 in the late Bronze Age/Urnfield Lichtenstein cave was probably not a fluke. Heck, possibly even Italic arrived in Italy with I2. R1b-U152 is rather a late, Ligurian arrival, also partly Gaulish. Also I would seriously consider that Hittite/Anatolian was associated with the elevated I2 levels that are found in southeastern Anatolia today.

So the emerging picture looks like this: The eastern, more strongly EHG descended Yamnaya was dominated by R1b. This R1b had (still unresolved) ties with a Caucasus population who admixed with the EHG on the steppe. The Corded Ware was basically R1a from northern EHG, but had R1b admixture, which accounts for the similar strong Caucasus admixture. The Bell Beaker R1b derives via founder effects from the Corded Ware R1b. In the western steppe however, EHG/ANE ancestry was lower and the Caucasus influence nonexistent. There, I2 was common. But since they all were steppe people and shared the Yamnaya culture, they surely spoke closely related languages. The earliest steppe expansions westwards into the Balkans were dominated by I2, possibly even Anatolian comes from these, and not from R1b people. Since Italo-Celtic split off early and came from the Danubian area, it too started as an I2 dominated language. Meanwhile Yamnaya had the Corded Ware and Afanasievo offshoots in the north, to the east and west. So there we already had a huge expansion of IE languages. R1b in western-southwestern Europe was eventually assimilated by local farmers like the Basques. Since Italo-Celtic at this early stage was still an I2 language and centered in and around the Carpathian Basin, we cannot expect the early R1b wave to Britain to have been Celtic. But probably it was an unknown IE language, since the autosomal Yamnaya-like impact was strong. (Perhaps the oldest, unintelligible Ogham inscriptions are in this language?) Unetice was already an early Italo-Celtic offshoot, and later the Tumulus culture brought another wave from the Carpathian Basin. As a result, R1b-U152 expanded as a Celto-Ligurian haplogroup in the middle Bronze Age and afterwards. R1b-M269* and -L23* expanded in West Asia perhaps coming from the Caucasus, with the Kura-Araxes culture and the Hurrians. Both haplogroups probably reached southeastern Europe and southern Italy together with J2.

Was him R1b1* though or just not a good enough sample to specify more? I am seriously asking, I do not have access to the article, neither remember which article had this sample.

"Furthermore you are wrong about the Corded Ware being R1a only. RISE1, a Corded Ware male from central Poland, is R1b. And he's dated to 2578 BC at the latest. This predates the arrival of Bell Beakers in central Europe."

Maybe I worded it too generally, but Corded Ware being R1a _only_ is something I never intended to say. Even if I did not know about that specific one (I did), I would not believe that a population of that range, time and geographic position could have been monolithic even for upstream level Y-DNA Hg. I do not say that Western R1b is impossible to be from this migration, I just say that it has not became a more likely, stronger hypothesis with the recent data.

"Furthermore, RISE98 from Sweden is also R1b, and although labeled as „baSca“ in Supplementary Table 9, that is Bronze Age Scandinavia, he belongs to a late Chalcolithic Battle Axe context, Battle Axe culture being the local version of the Corded Ware."

He could very well have an Atlantic Neolithic parental lineage there, regardless of the main origin of Battle Axe. South-western Scandinavia also shows the "Gedrosia" autosomal component that is centred on the British Isles by the way. (I am not sure it is connected, but some correlation is a possibility.)

Everyone has some influence on their neighbors. This is just like the crap with 'native american' DNA found in europe. IE how do you know what direction the influence is and when it happened? YOU DON'T. You may be looking at something 40k years old! Like the 'west asian' component which was almost 40k years old found in the baltic, which was supposed to have come to europe in very recent times. You know, indo-european migrations blah blah. Yet the earliest european we have ancient DNA for, already had it! And mediterranean and several others.

Ochre for example, was present in solutreans and with neanderthals. So how can they have been influenced by north america? Obviously it's the other way. There's only 50000 different pieces of evidence at this point. It's a fact.

I can live with the idea of migrations, but show proof. There's SOME proof of them, but so far not nearly enough. The 'celts' in germany are very german. The 'celts' in ireland are very irish. And so on. No one appears to have migrated from germany, if they did then all of europe and especially ireland would be extremely 'nordid' in their appearance but they are not even slightly german looking.

This language BSing is perfect con because it can't be proven or disproven. So you tie up this migration theory with something that has nothing to do with it combined with where languages lie today as 'proof' and no one can dispute it.

But since we can't test it, it's not science. We can never know this is correct, or incorrect, and claiming it's the case has no point.

We also know large parts of europe were indo-europeanized without changing their DNA. So if that's the case it seems obvious we can't equate language with DNA.

* "How do you know what language the Remedello people spoke? Do you have a time machine?"

I never claimed I "know" what language they spoke. In fact, that is what you claimed ("The Remedello culture of Northern Italy is acknowledged to be the first example of the Indo-European influx into that area. .. This is settled, and I have read dozens of posters here make statements to that effect in the past.") So you appear to have a defective memory, and a propensity to confabulation, to begin with.

Rather, what I stated was that we should consider the possibility that Remedello is not, in fact, a 'Kurgan ("PIE") culture'. Not everything that had wheels and heriarchy need be 'Indo-European'. Anyone with half a brain would realize that. So it seems rather that it is **you** that has made the simplistic, circular reasoning that you wrongly and unsuccesfully attempted to paint me with.

* You jest: "They bore Y-Chromosome Hg I, so they couldn't have been Indo-European-speaking, since Indo-Europeans were all R1, and that therefore proves IEs were R1." T

I never said that. Not being a halfwit, I wouldn;t make any simplistic and implicit links between genes and language.

* You then engage in a long-winded pile of self-gratuitous pontification, making statements like

"Italy has a well-preserved prehistory and well-documented history"-> A+ to Captain Obvious.

"We have a good sense of when the first Indo-Europeans came into the region {Italy}"-> Ok. So it is clearly you that has a time machine, because, frankly, i don't really know when IE arrived to Italy. ? Neolithic (unlikely), ? Copper Age, ?Bronze Age, even late Bronze/ early Iron Age ?? Certainly, Italic languages all seem to date to c. 1000 BC, if you've read recent perspectives (which I doubt).

"I-M26 ..holds one of the keys to understanding the process of Indo-Europeanization. "--> Really? Well, of course its important, because clearly it was still around during the Indo-Europeanization process - whenever and however that occurred. But the fact is, m26 was around In mesolithic, and likely Late UP Europe, and became Neolithicized. Everything points to M26 being western, linking it perhaps with France,Iberia, etc. The autosomal look of the I2 samples from Remedello looked Neolithic. So im not sure how you link it so explicitly with your bizarre theory of IE'ization {from the Palaeolithic west}.

I don't see a problem with that, at all. In an initial, quick expansion into already occupied territory, autosomal DNA typically dilutes quickly, leaving very little trace within just several generations. However, if the initial culture is very successful, later waves can dominate also in autosomal DNA.

Language and autosomal DNA can be strongly coupled (e.g., Icelandic, Pennsylvanian "Dutch") but also strongly decoupled (e.g., Hungarian, Mexican Spanish) after several generations. By the time of Indo-Iranian I doubt there was much autosomal trace left from the original IE speakers.

How closely the European subclades of YHG Q are related to North American subclades depends on how long ago they diverged, and in truth we don't really know. The oldest aDNA is Afontova-Gora2, and that has been dated to 17000YBP, or only about 2000 years before the Americas were settled. It might also be that some of the European subclades represent "lost" North American subclades. In truth, North American DNA is undersampled, as has been pointed out repeatedly in these blogs, and we have only begun to scratch the surface of North American aDNA. One thing that is sure is that there are numerous parallels between archaic Indo-European languages and modern North American languages. For instance, as I pointed out previously, the Swedish word for 'and', och in very close to its Lenape (Algonkian) counterpart ok and Mohawk (Iroquoian)nok. Here are some more examples from the regions of Sweden where YHG Q is most abundant:

My suggested etymology of Proto-Celtic *gladio- or *kladio- is not merely an "opportunistic speculation from a single data point". I clearly placed my discussion of this etymology in the context of other examples from the semantic field of "Weapons and Tools", and I've previously pointed out a large number of candidate correspondences between Indo-European and North American languages. The Cherokee word for 'ax', galuysdi which is different from the equivalent Northern Iroquoian forms, resembles forms for "Weapons and Tools" from Baltic Old Prussian: kalabijan ‘sword’, kalpus ‘ax’, kalmus ’stump’, keljan 'spear'. The root for the Cherokee form is likely derived from *Proto Iroquoian -kaɹ- 'to bite', and is also likely related to Anatolian forms such as Luwian karsti and Hittite kuērzi, 'to cut'. (Other possibly related terms include Cherokee agvhalvda ‘a piece of something that's been cut', where 'v' represents a nasalized 'u', and ’Proto-Germanic *halbaz "something divided".) At any rate, if you feel there are better proposed etymologies for *gladio- / *kladio- from Nostatic or Eurasiatic, then feel free to post them.

'The Corded Ware was basically R1a from northern EHG, but had R1b admixture, which accounts for the similar strong Caucasus admixture. The Bell Beaker R1b derives via founder effects from the Corded Ware R1b.'

The first Corded Ware R1b(a2a1) sample still has to be found! And how this hypothezised R1b could ever be indicative of any "strong Caucasus admixture" of Corded Ware? Moreover, Caucasus R1b, like Yamnaya R1ba2a2, belongs to another subclade than Bell Beaker samples that have R1ba2a1.Maybe you 'assume' RISE98 Nordic LN (soutnern Sweden) to be derived from corded Ware? Please take into consideration the strong influences of an important Danish bell Beaker (Jutland) nearby. This culture has been described as derived from the Dutch Veluwe group, a location were U106 is frequent and diverse.

'Since Italo-Celtic at this early stage was still an I2 language and centered in and around the Carpathian Basin, we cannot expect the early R1b wave to Britain to have been Celtic.'

Given the current array of I2I2a subclades in Vatya and Yamnaya we can't expect any wave of Italo-Celtic wave emanating out of the hypothetized Hungarian stop-over. The utter absence of evidence for a Kurganic identity of European language groups except Greek and Armenian isn't new, however, and I agree that English I2a2a1a1 is too old and unique to be related to LN or EBA immigrants of any alien kind at all.

According to http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/europeanneolithicdna.shtml which is drawing upon info from Sergey Malyshev, the early Neolithic R1b1 farmer was R1b-V88! That's the African variant of R1b, definitely not ancestral to R1b-M269.

Interesting article. By the way Dienekes, it appears that Greeks have ~15% Yamnaya-related ancestry (original Indo-European according to many) at most. And what do you think about the fact that Pontic "Greeks" are just acculturated northeast Anatolians?

Speaking of ancestry, it has become even more clear that Anatolian Turks have 10-12% East Eurasian admixture on average, based on the autosomal DNA results of 50+ members in our Turkish DNA project (see FTDNA Anatolia project). What I'm trying to say is, even if you take Kazakhs as a perfect genetic representative for the Turks that conquered Anatolia centuries ago it would still make Anatolian Turks more Turkic than Greeks are Indo-European. How sad, is not it?

Also, what do you think about this? http://j2-m172.info/2015/06/j2a2-ph3085-sk1403-ancient-altai-modern-uygur-turkish/

I remember a time when you said only O and C haplogroups can be linked with the spread of the Turkic languages. As science advances, pseudo-scientific views (or "propagandas" to be precise) of some amateur bloggers retreats. For example, R1a and R1b are not European haplogroups as has been said for many years, they are "Ancient North Eurasian". Also, all of the ancient samples from Altai region seem predominantly west eurasian. You've been spreading the myth that proto-Turks were 100% East Eurasian even though you have no genetic/linguistic/archeological evidence to back it up.

Anyway, keep living in the world where Greeks are a pure race while Turks are only %5 Turkic. No one buys your propaganda anymore.

@Simon_W Cool story. Just say " all Europeans are 100% Indo-European" already and make everyone happy.

"R1b in western-southwestern Europe was eventually assimilated by local farmers like the Basques."

Funny, really funny. Farmers assimilating invaders. Why don't you accept the fact that overwhelming majority of modern Europeans descend from pre-Indo-European people and most of the R1b subclades in Europe are native and have nothing to do with Yamnaya cultur?

Why don't you publish my comments? By the way I have two questions for you:1. What is the percentage of Hellenic genetic input in Pontus "Greeks"? 0,0001%? 2. What is the percentage of Yamnaya admixture in mainland Greeks? 13% 16%?

You were talking too much about Central Asian admixture in Turks without any genetic evidence. Why don't you enlighten us about Yamnaya/Indo-European admixture in modern Greece as well? "How Indo-European are Greek speakers?" or "How Hellenic are Pontus Greeks?". Sounds good in my opinion.

Mass DNA testing has produced some interesting results, including examples of YHG Q-CTS1780 in Scotland and Poland.

See: https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/amerind-y/dna-results

Also, Roberta Estes has published additional data about YHQ Q in Europe and the Americas. (See: http://dna-explained.com/2014/06/25/big-y-dna-results-divide-and-unite-haplogroup-q-native-americans/)

One commentator responded to this article:

"I have tested as Q-M3 but have ancestry in Germany. My grandfather didn’t come to the U.S. until 1923. No one is native american."

It appears that the Chinese findings of YHG Q-M3 aDNA in western China may have not have been a fluke after all, and YHG Q-M3 may have been widely scattered throughout northern Eurasia, including Europe.

Getting back to linguistic evidence for a back migration from North America, here are two more examples of possible correspondences between Iroquoian and archaic Indo-European languages - in this case, Proto Celtic:

The latter is very close to the Oneida equivalent awélyas and also resembles Cherokee k)awoladesgv. (*PIro: PNI *owɹaɁ 'air, wind'/ *PIE ḱewero- 'wind' / Mingo kææha' 'wind to blow')

The second form, *atakā-, on the other hand, more closely resembles Cherokee a(jo)tasga 'he's blowing, he's blowing (on it)'

There are only a few examples. So far, I've identified over 60 potential candidate correspondences between Indo-European and Iroquoian/Siouan languages out of the 207 words of the Swadesh list, which is well above the 10 percent figure often regarded as 'noise' due to false cognates.

In summary, I think it is increasing apparent that the Indo-European languages have a deep affinity with North American languages, and the most likely explanation involves a back migration from the Americas, which contributed to the "Native American component" in West Eurasians.

The earliest attestation of R1b(xV88) in Europe west of the steppe is thus in the early Corded Ware male from Poland, and, a finding from a brand new thesis by Anna Szecsenyi-Nagy, in the Vucedol culture in Hungary. Both date to the same time, ca. 2860 – 2600 BC.

The Corded Ware was about 75% Yamnaya-like in the autosomes. And there was Yamnaya in Hungary. Although it's possible that the R1b is from local farmers – wouldn't it be strange that there was no R1b all the time during the early and middle Neolithic, and then, just at the time when there was a major population upheaval with strong steppe-like admixture it pops up for the first time. It would be more natural to assume that it arrived at that time from the east. Especially since there was R1b(xV88) in the east, in Yamnaya.

Moreover both Yamnaya and modern western Europeans have R1b-L23, which according to current estimates based on full sequence analysis isn't very old, perhaps 4400 BC. If this had originated in western Europe, how did it come to dominate on the steppe at such a late date and across such a vast distance, also keeping in mind that it was the other way round, there was a massive migration from the steppe to central Europe.

Regarding the autosomal impact of the original Indo-Iranians, Davidski from Eurogenes has recently modeled the modern Pathans very successfully with qpAdm as 63.4% Sintashta + 23.1% Georgians + 13.4% Dai. The fit was extremely good: chisq 0.049 tail prob 0.975924.

As for the idea that Sintashta originated from Sardinian-like Farmers from SE Europe settling the steppe and mixing with Yamnaya-like people, I think it's dubious that they still existed at such a late date. There was the Yamnaya movement into southeastern Europe, and the Bronze Age Hungarians were clearly steppe admixed. Well, there is a Bronze Age and an early Iron Age sample from Bulgaria with rather strong West Asian components, so, who knows. But actually Sintashta people are very similar to Corded people, even in the yDNA, so the most natural assumption is that they are related with Corded people to the west, and hence not at all descended from early farmer-type people of SE Europe. (At least not directly, of course Corded people have also about 25% Middle Neolithic farmer ancestry.)

I didn't say the R1b in Yamnaya is indicative of Caucasus admixture. Rather, I thought it might be in line with it. It's a fact that Corded people have the same type of West Asian Caucasus-like admixture as Yamnaya has. And if this isn't related with their R1b it must be from their mothers, which would gel well with their mtDNA.

Why do you think Yamnaya has just R1b1a2a2 as „their subclade“? Besides they also had R1b1a2a which may be ancestral to your R1b1a2a1.

Given the eastern origin of R1b and the decreasing frequency of R1b from west to east it follows that later expansions from east to west carrying less R1b/more other haplogroups supplanted some of the R1b on their way. It would make sense if they had I2 clades, among others.

Europeans are descended from both, from pre-IE people and from PIE. There are no Europeans without PIE admixture and no pure PIE. And I won't say that R1b is from local farmers because it doesn't look very likely at all, as I elaborated in my reply to Slumbery. But y-haplogroups don't matter much anyway, having a PIE haplogroup (whatever these were) doesn't make anyone more Indo-European than others, it represents just an infinitesimal part of ones ancestry.

The Gedrosia component used to be an interesting puzzle for many years, but it has been resolved, it's no longer puzzling. The Gedrosia centered on the British Isles is from the Corded Ware. The Corded people from Germany were the first ancient sample in central/western Europe who had any Gedrosia at all, and they had 20 – 21% of it, more than any modern European population.

@ Rokus

Since R1b-L51 is very rare in eastern Europe and Anatolia it's quite possible that we will never find an ancient sample with this marker anywhere east of central Europe. So perhaps it really originated in central Europe, as you seem to believe. But it didn't grow on trees, it's descended from R1b-L23 which does exist in the east and which was found in Yamnaya.

The new finding by Anna Szecsenyi-Nagy of R1b in Vucedol is interesting, as it opens up the possibility that this R1b came from Anatolia.

"The Gedrosia component used to be an interesting puzzle for many years, but it has been resolved, it's no longer puzzling. The Gedrosia centered on the British Isles is from the Corded Ware. The Corded people from Germany were the first ancient sample in central/western Europe who had any Gedrosia at all, and they had 20 – 21% of it, more than any modern European population."

I missed this. Where can I found this analysis? I don't deny that I am a little sceptical about this, because if true then I see there a puzzle. "Gedrosia" is pretty much falling near zero in Eastern Europe in the modern population, included core CW areas. Actually some of the core areas of CW among the areas where "Gedrosia" hits the bottom. Based on the presence of the component in the modern populations CW would be the last place where I would look after the historical source.

Styan said...Several years ago I found that a good way to deal with admixture data was to copy a spreadsheet to my computer and rearrange the individuals and populations according to the largest component, to further sub-divide them according to which components came second and arrange them in order of the size of the largest component. This revealed some very interesting geographical patterns. I was especially interested in the Dodecad K12 data, which divided “West Asian” into “Caucasus” and “Gedrosia” components. The recent publication of ancient autosomal DNA data motivated me to look at this subject again. So far I have not found a spreadsheet integrating the K12 data for modern populations known for several years with the newly published ancient data. However, I have found K12 data for a number of ancient individuals on various websites. I have combined these with the data from several years ago and observed some very interesting things.

In particular, I found that the Yamnaya and Corded Ware people have high levels of the Gedrosia component and only a little Caucasus. (e.g. M020637 Yamnaya Sok River I0443: North European 61%, Gedrosia 27%, Atlantic Med 6%, Caucasus 3%, Siberia 3%) This suggests to me that an important part of the ancestry of these people came from east of the Caspian. This surprised me because, on the basis of several things I have read, I expected Yamnaya to be connected more with the Balkans, Anatolia and the Caucasus, but if so they would have less Gedrosia, more Caucasus and probably also more Atlantic Med and South-west Asian.

The Gedrosia component is named after the ancient Gedrosia region around the Iran / Pakistan border, where it reaches its highest levels in modern populations. However, this does not necessarily indicate its place of origin. It is found at significant levels from the British Isles to South India. I think Gedrosia in Asia cannot come from Europe because in Europe, Gedrosia is always found admixed with a much higher percentage of North European. The new ancient data shows that this was already the case in the Yamnaya Culture. In Asia, Gedrosia frequently occurs at high levels in groups with little or no North European admixture, especially in Dravidian populations. Similarly, Gedrosia in Europe and the Middle East cannot come from India, because in India, Gedrosia is always found with a high level of the South Asian component. The latter hardly extends beyond the north-western edge of the Indian Subcontinent. I think the Gedrosia component can be identified with the Neolithic farmers of the eastern Middle East – roughly from the Zagros to the Indus Valley. Its spread could have been associated with both the Dravidian and Indo-European languages.

I have been fascinated by the Indo-European problem for decades. I have generally favoured an Anatolian origin, although I have always been aware of the Kurgan hypothesis. Various people seem to think that the new ancient DNA data confirms the Kurgan hypothesis. It seems to me very credible that, at least, the Western European Italo-Celtic and Germanic branches of Indo-European originate from the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures. However, it appears that Yamnaya was the result of a migration from the south-east, rather than being the source of a migration to the south-east. I have always been very doubtful about ideas that Indo-European came from any further east than the regions around the Black Sea. However, the new evidence motivated me to look around the Internet for such ideas. I found information about the “Sogdiana hypothesis” from the linguist Johanna Nichols, according to whom Indo-European spread out from Central Asia. I also found Mariya Ivanova’s article “The Caucasus and the Orient: The origin of the “Maikop Phenomenon” in the 4th millennium BC” (reported by Dienekes on 31 May 2013). Ivanova connects the Maikop Culture of the northern Caucasus with Iran and southern Central Asia, rather than with the Euphrates and Tigris basins as others have done.

Styan said...I first entered my previous comment a week ago, but for some reason it did not appear. Now I would like to add a comment on Slumbery’s comment above. I was also surprised by the high levels of Gedrosia in Yamnaya and Corded Ware people in view of the low levels or absence of this component in modern Eastern Europeans. It seems the people with a significant amount of Gedrosia passed through Eastern Europe, then disappeared from there, but survived in the West. The modern Balto-Slav populations probably represent a later migration, presumably from the Balkans.

Not its not. the Archaeological equivalnce was dubious, and now we have genetic proof. But hey, feel free to be the proverbial ostrich..

* "A statement, which you purport to be "the fact that Remedello [people] didn't speak Indo European."

Incorrect and misquote. I actually said "consider the fact that Remedello [people] didn't speak Indo European.

So, your rebuttal was lame, wrong and misdrected. Poor thing, in addition to cognitive inaptitude, you appear to also have a chip on your shoulder against people that exercise and keep fit. Now I see how you get your name "moreisbetter". Keep wishing, you special person :)

"However, it appears that Yamnaya was the result of a migration from the south-east, rather than being the source of a migration to the south-east."

Which, if you think about it, makes more sense. Environmental conditions improve toward the north and west. It's difficult to imagine any scenario in which pastoralists would voluntarily migrate toward a region that is colder and drier than that which they left behind.

"I have always been very doubtful about ideas that Indo-European came from any further east than the regions around the Black Sea. However, the new evidence motivated me to look around the Internet for such ideas. I found information about the “Sogdiana hypothesis” from the linguist Johanna Nichols, according to whom Indo-European spread out from Central Asia."

Indeed, though it's a bit more complicated than that. What Nichols proposed is a linguistic spread zone extending from Sogdiana and Bactria to Anatolia. Historically, a language introduced into this zone spread easily and rapidly from east to west. In fact, more generally, the only proven linguistic expansion from west to east in this part of the world was the Russian expansion across the steppe into Siberia, late in the modern era. Nichols favored an origin for Indo-Iranian in Bactria or thereabouts. Under the right circumstances, at least, she did not rule out an origin for PIE in Anatolia or for that matter even the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, though the latter is somewhat less likely under her hypothesis given the evidence.

"I also found Mariya Ivanova’s article “The Caucasus and the Orient: The origin of the “Maikop Phenomenon” in the 4th millennium BC” (reported by Dienekes on 31 May 2013). Ivanova connects the Maikop Culture of the northern Caucasus with Iran and southern Central Asia, rather than with the Euphrates and Tigris basins as others have done."

Again, I think that what Ivanova's excellent paper is telling us is a bit complicated. It seems difficult to ignore material evidence suggesting that Maykop arose as a result of Mesopotamian influence, albeit indirectly through cultural intermediaries. What Ivanova demonstrates, I think, is that Maykop was more immediately involved in an exchange network of elite goods encompassing parts of Iran and the oases of southern Central Asia. Satisfying Mesopotamia's increasing demand for metal seems the most likely explanation for the Maykop phenomenon, so it shouldn't surprise us to find goods and cultural influences arriving in Ciscaucasia through essentially the same network that supplied lapis lazuli, for example, to the population centers of the south.

One characteristic of North American cultures could explain how hypothetical Native American-derived populations in Siberia night have lost their characteristic YHG Q profile and assumed a genomic composition more like western Eurasians during a westward expansion across the Eurasian steppes.

Eastern Woodland cultures of North American practiced a form of warfare known as "mourning wars" in which the objective was to acquire captives to replace dead members of the tribe. In a scenario in which a YHG Q population invaded a region where the local population was YHG R1a or R1b, and which experienced a 10% replacement of male lineages per generation due to warfare, within 23 or 24 generations - or about six centuries, the proportion of YHG Q in the population would fall to less than 10% and the population would then be largely composed of YHG R1a or R1b lineages. In fact, this effect was observed in the eastern United States in which large numbers of European captives were absorbed into the Iroquois and other Eastern Woodland tribes. (Interestingly, many Iroquois male lineages retained their English patrilineal surnames, despite the matrilineal kinship system of the Iroquois.) The Dene-speaking cultures of North America, which have been linked to the Yeniseian cultures of Siberia, did not seem to have this tradition. This could explain why the Ketts retained their predominantly YHG Q genomic profile while the descendants of "Paleo-Iroquoian" tribes could have "morphed" into predominantly YHG R1a or R1b Proto-Indo-Europeans.

I think it's obvious that the IE forms are "in family" with the Iroquoian form, which appears to be metaphorical.

This is hardly an isolated case. For instance, German schnell ('fast’) does not seem to have a Proto-Indo-European etymology. It does, however, resemble Proto-Iroquoian -hsnuːɹiɁ, from which Cherokee gatsanula ('fast') and Oneida yosno·lé (‘it’s fast’) are derived.

"It seems that my prediction the the West_Asian component would appear in post-5ka Europeans and was related to Indo-Europeans has been adequately confirmed by the last two papers."-- "Was related to Indo-Europeans"? That cannot be confirmed based on genes, because Indo-Europeanness is a phenomenon of the linguistic level. You seem to have your own favourite opinion, and therefore you see the genetic evidence through that kind of lenses.

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